I shake my head, the movement small, instinctive.
“I can’t—”
His hand closes around my jaw.
Not violently.
But firmly enough that I feel it.
“You can,” he says, softer now, but there’s something underneath it that wasn’t there before. “You just need to stop fighting me.”
My body hesitates.
Then...my mouth opens.
I don’t remember deciding to do it.
He feeds me slowly, the motion controlled, patient, like this is something intimate instead of something forced.
I chew because my body does it.
I swallow because it’s easier than choking on it.
Every bite feels heavier than the last, my stomach turning with each one, my head spinning harder the longer I sit there.
He watches me the entire time.
Pleased.
Content.
Like this is exactly what he wanted.
“See,” he says quietly. “You’re already getting better.”
The words don’t land.
Or they do, but they don’t stick.
“Tomorrow is going to be a special day,” he continues.
The sentence pulls at something in me.
Slow.
Delayed.
“Why?” I ask.
He smiles. It’s soft. Wrong.
“Because it’s the day you and I become one again.”
The words slide into place without weight.
Without meaning.
I blink slowly, trying to hold onto them, trying to understand what he means, but my thoughts don’t connect properly, they slip before I can piece them together.
